


Attach Themselves as Scars

by azephirin



Series: Cracked Stars Shining [12]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Harry Potter - Rowling, Twilight - Meyer
Genre: Bars and Pubs, Bechdel Fix, Community: 100_women, Cracked Stars Shining, Crossover, Female Characters, Female Friendship, Fix-It, Gen, Psychic, Rape Recovery, Rewriting Toxic Myths, Workplace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-09
Updated: 2010-03-09
Packaged: 2017-10-07 19:51:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azephirin/pseuds/azephirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some crimes can never be erased.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Attach Themselves as Scars

**Author's Note:**

> **Warning:** discussion of past sexual assault
> 
> **Author's note**: For [](http://community.livejournal.com/100_women/profile)[**100_women**](http://community.livejournal.com/100_women/) [table](http://azephirin.livejournal.com/74095.html) prompt "strangers." This is an outtake from [Cracked Stars Shining](http://archiveofourown.org/works/21206) and contains spoilers through [chapter nine](http://archiveofourown.org/works/21206/chapters/27473). For the Twilight series, spoilers through _Eclipse_.
> 
> **Disclaimer**: Not mine. Title and cut text from "[Sorrows](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=180005)," by Lucille Clifton.

The woman comes in shortly after they open. She's spectacularly beautiful, with golden eyes and blond curls that cascade around her shoulders; as a customer, though, she's not especially memorable, ordering and paying for a drink, then nursing it while reading a book.

Except then Ginevra feels the weight of the woman's stare. She waits for it to go away—for whatever strange curiosity this is to be satisfied—but it doesn't; it solidifies, if anything, becoming heavier and more distracting. Finally Ginevra turns around and gives the woman the flat-eyed glare that Faith has taught her as a weapon against leers on the subway. It has no effect, though—the woman just meets her eyes steadily.

Then the after-work crowd starts to filter in, and Ginevra's attention is diverted to other matters, though the woman's presence at the far end of the bar never entirely leaves her mind.

 

+||+||+

 

Spike joins her later, as the rush gets heavier, and they work together companionably. Ginevra can still feel the blond woman's stare; she glances over, and sees that the blonde has been joined by a dark-haired woman. This woman gives a friendly smile in reply to the baleful expression Ginevra throws their way. Ginevra is about to elbow Spike and ask if he has any idea why in Godric's pants this blond bint is staring at her, but just then Faith appears and elbows her way to the bar.

The dark-haired woman explodes with, "Faithie!" and they throw their arms around each other.

It is almost unimaginable that someone might address Faith Lehane as "Faithie" and not only live to tell the tale but be embraced for it.

Faith waves Spike and Ginevra over. "This is Alice," she says. "Alice, this is Ginevra Weasley, and you know Spike."

Alice smiles as though delighted to make Ginevra's acquaintance; Spike, meanwhile, shakes her head cordially. "This is my sister Rosalie," Alice says, and the blond woman greets everyone politely enough; her focus is still on Ginevra, though, and at this point Ginevra would really like to know why.

"What the hell are you doing on this side of the continent?" Faith asks. "You don't call, you don't write, you don't tell me you're in town—"

"Oh, baloney, I do call and I do write," Alice says. "This was a spur-of-the-moment trip—we were finally able to convince Rosalie to come along, though."

"What about this new addition to the family that you keep talking about? Do I get to meet her?"

The blond woman, Rosalie, rolls her eyes sharply.

"Be nice," Alice admonishes her. "And yes, we talked Bella into coming, too, and I told her and Edward to meet us here when they were done taking long walks holding hands and gazing soulfully into each other's eyes." Alice grins and adds, "I'd worry about whether she'll be able to get in, but it appears that the proprietors ignore certain laws. Or at least they do when it suits them."

Spike appears to be drawing himself up to look offended, but Faith cuts him off with a look of consternation and, "Wait, how old is this chick?"

"Eighteen," says Alice innocently. "Seventeen, when Edward met her."

This time it's Faith who seems to be preparing a countenance of great moral indignation, but Ginevra points out, "We're hardly a group to lecture about age differences."

"Well, just because Sam robbed the cradle—well, and Dean, and Angel, and Spike…OK, fine, yes, you're right. Still! Seventeen!"

Ginevra coughs.

"Sam isn't a hundred years old!"

Ginevra is called away on account of customers; when she glances back sometime later, Faith and Alice are apparently engrossed in Alice's large variety of couture purchases. And, of course, Rosalie is still staring.

Ginevra is tired of being stared at, and she's stepped just close enough to inform Rosalie of that fact when Rosalie says, "You were not able to take your own revenge." Ginevra's about to snap out a _what the hell_ and _stop fucking staring at me_, but Rosalie continues before she can. "Your friend killed him. And he deserved to die, but part of you wishes you had been the one to do it."

This time, it's Ginevra staring. "How do you know about that?" she whispers.

Rosalie nods toward Alice. "She sees the future. Our brother Edward sees the present. And I see the past."

"Get out of my head," Ginevra says, almost a snarl.

"I'm sorry," says Rosalie. "I would un-see it if I could. But I can't."

Ginevra turns—to do what, she doesn't know—but Rosalie's quiet voice follows her. "Killing the perpetrator doesn't erase the crime."

"How would you know?"

"Because I thought it would. I killed the men who did it—all of them, slowly, and with great pleasure. I thought revenge would make it hurt less. It didn't."

Ginevra can't look at her. "What does?"

Rosalie puts out a hand, and Ginevra realizes only after she has already moved that she has reached up to take it. Rosalie's skin is cold, and hard in the way that no human's is—_vampire_, Ginevra thinks, though there's no attendant alert of danger, just awareness of the fact. "Time," says Rosalie. "Love helps, too, and you have that."

Ginevra nods, but meets Rosalie's golden eyes when she says, "I want to kill him for what he did. Even if he's already dead."

"He would deserve a second death. But even in our world, that isn't possible."

"I know," says Ginevra, and takes her hand away from Rosalie's, and goes back to work.

**Author's Note:**

> This...didn't exactly turn out the way I wanted. It's not really part of the larger story, but (for some incomprehensible reason) I read _Eclipse_ on my flight home from Europe and (for entirely comprehensible reasons) was struck with rewrite-toxic-myths urges. This conversation was chief among them, though the execution isn't what I'd hoped for. Also, those familiar with the Twilight series will probably note that Rosalie does not canonically possess the ability I've given her. So far as I can tell, her "gift" (which in others consist of talents like precognition, telepathy, healing, etc.) is being beautiful, which on its own doesn't seem like much.


End file.
